Assistant Job Description

Join Us as an Assistant

OFFICIAL JOB DESCRIPTION:

HOUSE ASSISTANT

An assistant at L'Arche Nehalem works with the other assistants and the Leadership Team to create and support community life in our homes. An assistant must feel called to live in and help form community. This position requires a mature individual able to maintain confidentiality while dealing with a variety of personalities and the tensions and conflicts that result.

An assistant must learn to develop competence in a wide range of areas including interpersonal relations, household planning, individual programming and personal time management. This position requires a commitment to live out the mission of L'Arche Nehalem and a call to live with people with disabilities.

Overall Function:

To work cooperatively with the other members of the House Assistant Team to create community, to support the growth and well being of each member of the community, and to share responsibility for management of the home.

Specific Responsibilities:

| Help the core members with basic needs: hygiene, health, finances, recreation, personal and spiritual growth.

| Share household responsibilities including cooking, cleanliness and maintenance of house and yard, upkeep of community vehicles, transportation for core members, record keeping.

| Help plan celebrations, leisure activities, trips, prayer, community nights, retreats, one-on-one outings with core people

| Welcome guests and visitors into the home.

| Use the Rules of Cooperation.

| Attend weekly community night and regularly scheduled house and assistant meetings.

| Develop supportive relationships with families of core members, neighbors, and professional human service workers (case workers, health care providers, counselors).

Accountability:

The house assistant is accountable to the House Assistant Team and to the Leadership Team.

Requirements:

| Criminal record check

| Current Basic First Aid and Adult CPR certification

| Complete Substitute Caregiver Training Manual from Multnomah County Adult Care Home Program.

| Become familiar with the Charter of L'Arche, the policies of L'Arche Nehalem, and the state requirements for operation of an Adult Care Home.

| After the 3-month probationary period, make a minimum of a year-long commitment.

At L’Arche, the people with a developmental disability are known as core members. They are at the core of each L’Arche community, which tries to respond to the fundamental needs of the human heart--- home, fulfilling work, a chance to learn, participate, contribute and have fun and have people to share life with. Core members are not clients and assistants are not staff.

As a L’Arche assistant, the journey begins with an invitation to make your home in a L’Arche home. There you will accompany core members in their activities of daily life. You don’t need any previous experience, but must have a willingness and openness to learn from and be changed by the core members. An assistant’s practical responsibilities vary widely according to the needs of core members, for example:

* Teaching new life skills such as cooking, shopping, using public transit and so on.

* Sharing in household chores, including cleaning, shopping, cooking and driving.

* Participating in and contributing to L’Arche community meetings, events and worship.

What remains constant are two main goals: to create home with the core members and to support them in dignified, meaningful activities that enable them to reach their full potential and to use their gifts in the broader local neighborhood and community.

In the first three months, you and the community have a chance to discover whether the mutual choice made to come to L’Arche and be welcomed is a sound one for you and the community as you learn about the values, philosophy and way of life at L’Arche. As you begin to develop relationship with people living there, you gradually take on responsibility for some of the daily needs.

After the initial three months, many choose to stay for a period of time to deepen their experience of community living at L’Arche. Depending on the individual, some stay for additional months or a year. In dialogue with the community, the individual can reevaluate their commitment and stay for longer periods of time as well.

Assistants are paid a monthly stipend and benefits. Assistants live in a L’Arche home with core members. To support this commitment, they are given formation and training, days away each week and month, annual vacation and time for a retreat.

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For more information about becoming a L’Arche assistant, please contact Susan Mitchell or Amy Barcia at: